Tag: Northumbria

As I’m writing this, we are currently bombing down the A1 towards home. The sun is shining, there still isn’t a cloud in the sky, and this morning we were treated to the most spectacular sunrise at Bamburgh.

Thursday we left early after another very peaceful night at our secret Brit stop location. We were heading to another Brit Stop location in the county of Angus. We’ve never been to Angus before, always in a rush to get north, or in a rush to get to Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful county, with rolling hills and pretty rivers flowing through.

Our stop for the night was a farm shop and craft centre, and we enjoyed some cured venison from their farm shop for lunch. It was so good that we bought a couple more packs to bring home with us (however they’ve already been eaten!)

Just down the road there was a waterfall and gorge that we had been told was worth a visit. We walked down, and were stunned when we got there. It was probably the most impressive waterfall and gorge we’ve seen. It was so steep. The photos we took don’t do the sheer drop justice. It was terrifying but equally amazing to stand at the top and look down.

We had another peaceful and undisturbed nights kip and set off about 9am. We were heading towards Berwick upon Tweed. The sun was still shining, we couldn’t believe that we had done the whole time in Scotland with blue skies! Especially when we left in such dubious conditions!

We arrived at Berwick upon Tweed at lunchtime and had a wander. We’d been looking forward to visiting however unfortunately we had a bit of a disappointing visit. First of all we spent 30mins of our 2 hours parking trying to find the public loo. Without being too graphic we try to avoid doing certain things in our toilet in Bluebell, therefore when we arrived we decided we both could do with using the facilities at Berwick. We followed the signs for the loos round the town with no luck at finding them! We stopped at the tourist information centre and were instructed as to where they were. We still didn’t find them. We ended up doing another circuit of the town and just as the situation was getting more desperate than it was we found them by chance more than anything. We then were charged 20p each to go. Wouldn’t mind this if the toilets were clean, had loo roll, didn’t stink- you get the gist.

Feeling rather more comfortable now, we set about an explore of the town. Don’t know if we were unlucky or if it were a typical day there, however we encountered several strange folk who stopped us in the street and had rather odd conversations with us- one lady was quite honestly mad! She walked by us, then turned back and made a big fuss about how she wasn’t going to stop us but she couldn’t help herself. She then gave Jazz such a fuss and wanted to know all about it. Then she said he’d get shot if he were on his own?!!

By now, we were starting to wonder what was going on. We enjoyed the town wall walk and soon it was time to go back to the van as our parking had run out. We had spied some cheap diesel on our way in so decided to fill up. A coupe more strange incidents with folk resulted in us leaving with a bit of a bad mood – one of these incidents involved someone nicking our space in the diesel queue- a pet hate of mine!

We decided that we must be tired as were both grouchy and couldn’t wait to get back on the A1. We headed for Bamburgh. We had wanted to wild camp here last year but after reading some motorhome forums got cold feet as it seemed they didn’t like motorhomes overnight parking there.

We found a lovely spot for a cuppa, that was far enough out of the town for us not to be a nuisance. It had the most amazing view of the beach, the sea and the castle. We made the executive decision after a cuppa and a wander down the beach that we would chance it and stay over night. There weren’t any signs whatsoever and so we battoned the hatches down and hoped for the best. By 8pm another couple of vans had joined us. We had a very peaceful night and awoke to the most impressive sunrise we’ve seen. An early morning dog walk down to the castle with sun rising on our our left was a fantastic way to start the day. Granted today is the day we journey back to Norfolk- our ETA is 2:15pm, but our pleasant start to the day really has rounded this amazing holiday off perfectly.

Jazz has been very well behaved, he loves motorhoming, he nests himself at the back and looks out of the windows, however right now he has made a nest on all the dirty washing!

We’re just driving past the Angel of the north now, the road is clear, and we can’t believe how lucky we have been!!